AB0498 CONCENTRATIONS OF ADVANCED GLYCATION END PRODUCTS (AGEs) CORRELATE WITH INDEXES OF ACTIVITY AND DAMAGE ACCRUAL IN PATIENTS WITH SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS (SLE).
Authors: I. Carrión Barberà, L. Triginer, L. Tío, C. Pérez, L. Polino, J. Llorente Onaindia, A. Ribes, E. Beltrán, A. Pros, M. Ciria Recasens, J. Monfort, T. C. Salman Monte
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2022)

Background It has been postulated that AGES could have a relevant role as inducers in the chronic inflammatory pathway present in various diseases 1 ; among them, in immune-mediated diseases such as SLE, as well as that its concentration could be related to some parameters of the disease such as activity 2 or accumulated damage 3 , showing studies discrepant results to date. Objectives To describe correlations between the concentrations of AGEs measured by cutaneous autofluorescence and various parameters related to the disease in a population of SLE patients. Methods AGE concentrations were measured by skin autofluorescence (Age Reader Mu Connect from Diagnoptics Technologies BV) in 66 SLE Caucasian patients and correlations with demographic and clinical data were analyzed, after adjusting for age, smoking and corticosteroids as possible confounding factors, according to previous data. Previous validation studies have shown that skin autofluorescence is strongly related to AGE levels in skin biopsies 4 . The indices were analyzed both as quantitative and categorized variables according to previously established categories or to medians/tertiles/quartiles depending on the distribution of the variable in our population. Results Table 1 shows some descriptive characteristics of our cohort. There were clinically and statistically significant differences in the values of AGEs according to the patient’s SLEDAI and SLICC. Specifically, it was observed that AGEs’ values in the population with severe activity according to SLEDAI was 0.61 (95% CI 0.85-2.046; p=0.045) points &gt; than in those in remission (p=0.045); as well as AGEs‘ values in patients with SLICC ≥1 was 1.23 (95% CI 0.49-1.98; p=0.030) points &gt; than in the group without cumulative damage. In all the models, the values of AGEs increased significantly with age, smoking and current treatment with corticosteroids, except for the model including the SLICC variable. Interactions in said model were explored, and it was observed that the concentration of AGES depended on the interaction between the value of SLICC and the intake of corticosteroids, so that differences were only observed between SLICC groups in those who took corticosteroids. Table 1. Descriptive characteristics of the cohort. c: categorized. Average SD % Age 54 15 BMI 25.36 4.68 Smoker No 68.2 Yes 31.8 AGEs 2.6 0.7 Disease duration (years) 16 11 DAS28 2.22 1.16 cDAS28 remission 71.2 low 9.1 moderate 15.2 high 4.5 SLEDAI 5 4 cSLEDAI remission 21.2 low 16.7 moderate 51.5 high 10.6 SLICC 1 1 cSLICC 0 0.0 1 48.5 &gt;1 30.3 3 21.2 FACIT Fatigue Scale 18 10 Patient global assessment (PGA) 3.0 2.4 cPGA 0-1 31.8 2-3 28.8 &gt;3 39.4 Physician global assessment 1.7 1.3 cPhysician global assessment 0-1 47.0 &gt;1 53.0 Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) 3.1 3.1 cVAS 0 34.8 1-4 30.3 &gt;4 34.8 Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) 0.527 0.551 cHAQ 0 33.3 0-0.75 36.4 &gt;0.75 30.3 Corticoids Yes 27.3 No 72.7 Conclusion A correlation with elevated values of AGEs was observed in those SLE patients with higher scores in the indexes of activity (SLEDAI) and damage accrual (SLICC). The fact that the differences in SLICC are only observed in those patients treated with corticosteroids suggests that, maybe, only the accumulated damage related to taking corticosteroids could be mediated by AGEs. References [1]Medzhitov R. Origin and physiological roles of inflammation. Nature 2008; 454 :428–435. [2]Vytášek R, Šedová L, Vilím V. Increased concentration of two different advanced glycation end-products detected by enzyme immunoassays with new monoclonal antibodies in sera of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2010; 11 :83. [3]leeuw K de, Graaff R, Vries R de, Dullaart RP, Smit AJ, Kallenberg CG, Bijl M. Accumulation of advanced glycation endproducts in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Rheumatology 2007; 46 :1551–1556. [4]Meerwaldt R, Links T, Graaff R, Thorpe SR, Baynes JW, Hartog J, Gans R, Smit A. Simple noninvasive measurement of skin autofluorescence. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2005; 1043 :290-298. Disclosure of Interests None declared